Cosmic Destroyer 

Cosmic Destroyer is a frenetic arcade-style horizontal SHMUP, with classic gameplay elements as well as new mechanics. A love letter to classic gaming, 80s and 90s action movies, and the neon glow of a dark arcade. Levels twist and turn, enemies blow up into pieces that can be grabbed and used as special weapons by the player. Speed changes, secret areas hiding power ups, a consistent deluge of new enemies filling the screen with fresh bullet patterns and behaviors to keep players on their toes.

Demo to be released Spring 2025

In Cosmic Destroyer, players will challenge themselves to dodge attacks and fend off enemies to ultimately take out the source of the corruption that is devastating the cosmos. Take up the challenge alone, or team up with a friend for a classic arcade local co-op experience. Cosmic Destroyer is designed to work on joysticks, keyboard and arcade sticks alike - so bring your favorite controller!

Original Concept Release "Tiny Cosmos" in  2019, the project completely Re-imagined in 2025 as Cosmic Destroyer!

Gameplay

Shooting - tap to fire a wide shot or hold to focus your shots in a forward firing direction. While holding the button down the ship will move at a slower speed, this also helps to provide situational speed change to dodge enemy attacks and navigate tricky environments.

Secondary Weapons - once the player collects secondary weapon pickups such as the Missile, the secondary weapon will automatically fire when the player is firing their primary weapon. Some secondary weapons have different behaviors or firing dynamics when the button is held down.

Salvaged Tech / Weapons - some enemies may leave behind a piece of their ship when they are destroyed that can be used by the player. Grabbing these items will give the player a temporary situational ability, weapon, or other modification. This could include large powerful weapons with limited shots, a large piece of debris that absorbs hits but slows the player down. Approaching these components will display a prompt for the player to pickup or swap their current salvaged item for the new item.

Option Drones - a staple in classic SHMUP games, options spin around the player and open, firing volleys of shots as the player fires their primary weapon. As an added bonus, options can absorb hits from enemy bullets. Option drone weapons upgrade along with the ship's primary weapons, changing their firing patterns, strength and projectile speeds. Options are picked up as power ups.

Special Abilities & Megabombs - each playable ship has a special ability, the primary one being the classic Megabomb which wipes out the entire screen of bullets, damages all enemies on the screen over the course of it's shockwave, makes the player temporarily invulnerable. It's also pretty fun to watch the devastation!

Ships and Customization - different ships have different load-outs providing variations of weapons, drone behavior and special abilities. A number of variant visual styles are provided for parts of ships such as wings, nosecones, engines - so players can customize the look of their ship as well. But these can also provide other trade-offs such as reducing max power to raise max option count, or other modifications such as  modifying maneuvering speed.

Power Up and Progression

Cosmic Destroyer uses classic progression mechanics with a few unique twists of its own. Players will enjoy familiar power-ups which stack until the ship reaches maximum level, at which point any additional power up will instead increase scoring. Missile power-ups add additional missile projectiles, option power-ups behave in a similar way. Special Abilities like the Megabomb use a limited ammo, or their own specific mechanics such as a charge-up gauge.

Scoring and Chaining

Cosmic Destroyer includes a hit tracking and multiplier mechanic which counts each enemy hit towards a chain which will expire after a short time unless more enemies are hit. As the hit counter grows, so does a score multiplier which will add to the bonuses received from defeating enemies and collecting pickups dropped by enemies and hidden in destructible objects throughout the stages.